Transparent Surface Plopable water ... one step further ?¿

[socomseal45]

un-friggin-believable, im at a loss of words   

[jeronij]

* LoneRanger being the one that asked for a regional picture is more than pleased. 

So, you were the one ....      , you know, I am so short of time that I couldnt repage to look for your name. My apologizes 

David, glad to see that it works fine in your system, and that it reaches your expectations  . One quick hint: keep the number of tiles as low as possible. Dont abuse of them  . The less pieces you use, the less "artifacts" 

^ Jeronij's real identity has finally been uncovered. Only Chuck Norris could have conceived of something this amazing.

Fred

 

Now that the basis of the mod seem to be enough to get a nice effect in the game, it is time to try to improve the water itself. Now it looks like pool water. Very clean and quiet. I have been making some testing with the original model, to give it a more "alive" sensation. The problem comes when I try to give the just amount of "life". If I give it too much, it looks like plastic. If I give it not enouhg, the changes are too subtile to be visible.
Finally I found a neutral solution. The water should look like if it was moving ( the best I can do using fixed models) and I have reduced the visibility / transparency a little bit to give the impression of running water ( which would reduce the visibility).

Before I continue this way, I would like to hear your comments on this enchacement?¿  

On the bottom of the picture you can see the water, simply the water, placed on flat terrain. On the upper side you can see a test stream I made to test this new posibility.



And some close-ups on the test stream









The further you zoom, the less visible the effect.




So, please, tell me if this is the way to go  

Could this be done using a simple (or somewhat more sophisticated) opacity map for the alpha, ie a gradient from black to white (or preferably darker gray to lighter gray)? If this works it would make a great difference I think.

Nice to see you around this thread, father of the creature  . Since we use plopable items ( like trees ) we are not able to control the orientation when the water is placed, so this makes your idea not valid for this case    . It would be valid for a lots set, but this will not be the case... for this project 

Btw, the water effect I used in the previous post's pictures is included in this release: JRJ Rural Culverts And Water Effects

[EDGE4194]

Jeronij- The new effect looks great- it really gives that appearance of movement. I am in absolute awe over what you have done here. Finally I can have some water in my dry stream beds!

[FrankU]

It's even better than the water that amazed us all.
For my games it would be niceto havethe edges quite straight. I usually don't use streams and rivers but canals. In the Netherlands there are no small rivers and streams. But in return we have an awful lot of canals. But I understand that your water will not be an answer to every question. So I will be perfectly happy with what we can see here.
In fact you make me hoping again that I will be able to make a region that resembles my country.
I had some experiments with the available plopable water and/or trying to make the canals with the in game water, but they were not really succeeding.

[Ennedi]

Jeronij,

The texture and transparency level are very good, I don't know if it would be wise to improve anything here
But I would ask you to look at two things:

1. Shadow. Find a steep slope and make the stream at the foot of it. Look how water looks in the shadow.

Your/DT old water: a bit strange (but from bigger distance it is enough good)



Scorchin's sparkling water: Hmm...



Scorchin's green "dead" water: very bad



And what about your water (closeup and general view?)

2. I think the shape of your pieces is not very comfortable. It is a bit too squared and some fragments of it's edge are very characteristic. It gives a repetitive effect.

Again some examples of existing water: Your/DT water is much more comfortable for player and enables to customize the river/lakeside as you want (almost ). Scorchin's water is squared, and you can't plop it as you want. The edge looks unnatural and usually you must hide it.







Sorry for my comments, but if I see one of the best ideas last time, I want to help to make it even better

[sEAhAwk fAn121]

wow!! this is amazing! sooo realistic   

[cogeo]

Since we use plopable items ( like trees ) we are not able to control the orientation when the water is placed

I don't understand, don't these items already have an "orientation"? I mean if you want to make a stream in the North-South direction, shouldn't you plop a set of straight pieces, placed in the NS direction?

Also can we download (or get via email) a test/evaluation version to see what the real thing is? If not then please provide a link to the mod this is about to replace (assuming that exactly the same technology is being used).

[figui]

i like it.
it's very realistic and looks really nice on your test stream.

[Emperor Stormont]

Fantastic progress, it looks wonderful, the new texture works very well and I LOVE the banks. 

[girlfromverona]

Wow - that is AMAZING! 

When will we be able to d/l this work of art??

[Jmouse]

Jeronij, the technical discussion is way over my head, but I do wish to express my interest in this project and my gratitude to you for undertaking it.

Until next time...
Joan

[jeronij]

Hello to all and thanks for the feedback 

Special thanks to ennedi for his constructive suggestions and comments 


Before I forget it   

Please, tell me which water texture do you prefere the best. The original, clean one, or the new, blurry one ?¿. It is important for me to know your feedback about it before I release anything 


I have been making some "serious" testing with the water.

I have extracted some rules you should keep in mind when using the plopable ( transparent ) water :

1) DONT USE IT IN AN UNREALISTIC WAY  . Specially when it comes to the slopes. The real water does not stay quiet on the slopes. It drains the terrain and creates rapids, waterfalls, canyons and such naturall accidents, which you also should try to re-create when you plan your rivers, streams and humid zones. The real water stays quiet only in mainly flat terrain.

2) Use anything to cover the water shores. Natural flora props ( trees, bushes, rocks...) or man made props/lots like walls, parks and such. Combine them. In the reallity, again, the water bodies are always surrounded by something. Usually flora, but also human constructions.

3)  Use the smaller pieces posible, specially on slopes, to avoid graphic glitches, and the limit the number of pieces to the minimum. If you can draw a stream with ten (10) pieces, dont use 15 or 20 . It will increase the chance for graphic glitches to occur.

4) At the furthermost zoom levels, the LODs are not controllable, and the water looks like squares. If you followed the rules above, this should not be that much visible, but if you make a big open water body, it will probably look ugly from these zoom levels ( 1 and 2).

5) Accept the limitations of the plopable water. In fact, to simulate water in a realistic way in this game, we would need a whole engine for it. It is perfectly understable ( perhaps not so forgiveable  ) the reasons why Maxis discarted this option.

And with these rules in mind, I think you can enjoy the plopable water in a reasonable way 



Now, back to testing. I decided to make a hard test with the water in the slopes. I decided to break the first rule, and place it in a really steep ( and unrealistic) slope. I used 1x1 tiles for this task, and the result is not that bad.... for such a slope  I turned the grid on so you can notice the height change in that mountain.



As you can notice, and mentioned above, some "steps" can be seen across the water. The higher the slope, the most noticeable the graphic glitch.



In this picture I mixed the original water ( to the bottom) and the new water ( the rest). I hope this may help you to decide which one should be the first to be released 



Now the "shadow test". A really weird test imo, ennedi  , but since you requested it, I though it was worht it. I hope you like the results 



One zoom level more far....



And now the mentioned squared LOD at zoom level 2....



... and zoom level 1



Fortunately, at regional view leve, the graphic glitches are gone 



So, this is all the true about the transparent water in the actual state of development ( which is 100% of modding, and pending to decide the models to use for the first release)

Please, share your feedback   

Best regards to all 

[Pat]

Jeroni this is by the best water right there in that pic and i guess you can say that is my vote - pat

[metasmurf]

Great work on this jeronij! Will there be rapids/waterfall lots?

[Ennedi]

Jeronij,

Thank you very much for your nice words, I'm glad if my comments were useful
My opinion:

1. Your rules are obvious. But in some cases it is impossible to keep to them. I made some experiments with the ploppable water in my MD (Shosaloza):
- Experiment 1: Is it possible to make a lake without the flora/stones along the lakeside?
The answer: yes, you can see how it looks in my MD (Page 3, update 3 - look at the lake, and page 4 update 4, look at the stream on closeups at the Zen Garden).
Why I checked it? The first reason is I use red-brown rock mod. There are no ploppable rocks wchich harmonize with this rock. So I had an idea to use textures from Italia Terrain mod, and I tried to force these textures to appear in particular places. The second reason is when I make a stream/lake on high elevation, above the upper border of the vegetation, it would be very strange if I would plant trees and bushes around my water It would be especially strange on snow.
Look at the stream in the update 3 (two views to the North). You will see I have some snow at the riverside, and I used only a few stones. And I must say I'm quite satisfied of the result.
- Experiment 2: is it possible to put  a ploppable water on slope (of course very soft slope )
The answer: yes. Look again at the stream in my update 3. It is made on the soft slope. I didn't want to make rapids there (I think there is still a lot work to do with rapids) and it would be impossible to make the river bed as on my pictures without the slope tolerant water.
Also, in the update 1 (the Dam) I lowered 2 tiles on the lake by 0,5 m to put the boat from Oppie Canal set. So I made very soft slope around these 2 tiles. It would be impossible without slope tolerant water.

My intention of this explanation was to show some specific (but not such rare) situations. I saw the old ploppable water was enough flexible. The new water should be equal or better 
And it is, as can be seen on your pictures

2. "The shadow experiment"  The result is excellent!
(Don't be surprised I asked about it, if you have a lake at the foot of the mountain, it is important. Look at my first update - the picture of the lake above the dam)

3. Wchich water?
I agree with Pat, water on this picture is fantastic. But in fact I can see your new (blurry) water only in zoom 1 and 2. I suppose it can be better than the first (clear) version, but I will be sure if I will see the closeup

Your work is fantastic, and this cooperation gives me a great satisfaction

PS: I was just working on my new update, and at one moment my computer crashed to desktop. I looked at the site and saw your post
Jeronij, didn't you use any paranormal abilities?

[threestooges]

From your most recent post, my vote woul dbe for the outer version (the old one I believe), but I would like to see both options available. The reason for tha is that it seems to be a way to create the perception of depth (the less clear water being deeper). But as for the first release, I think I would prefer the clearer one. Great work on all of this.

[girlfromverona]

Personally I'd prefer the "animated" water to the still water for making realistic-looking streams, but I think they'd both have their uses.

[figui]

i think the new one is better, but both are nice

[Jmouse]

I like the "animated" version as well. But with all due respect, your slope test doesn't seem fair. My understanding is that the transparent plopable water is intended for use as a shallow and narrow stream, not as a huge lake on an impossibly-steep slope.
I offer this opinion in the spirit that feedback from a simple player with no technical or programming skills might be helpful. If I'm out of line, however, feel free to ignore me!
Once again, thank you for undertaking this project. Whatever the end result, it will be a giant step towards heretofore unimagined realism in game play.

Until next time...
Joan

[MAS71]

Hi my master Jeronij 

Wow!!  It's really ?? Unbilievable !!
Nice !! It's really very nice project !!
(  I can't t stop surprising words from my mind!! )

Thanks for your invitation to this topic Jeronij.

A lot of people expected this, but is it the method that a lot of people gave up? 
Of course I looked for this method, too long times !!

There is not the word of "the impossibility" in the dictionary of Jeronij and god of members BSC !!
I'm looking foward to completion this great project very much !!


Thank you Jeronij and Cogeo  !!

- Mas'71